Android smartphones with 48MP and pop-up selfie cameras are quickly taking over in markets overseas. Today, Oppo has announced the F11 Pro, its latest Android smartphone with both of those features, an affordable price, and more. Here’s what you need to know.
It’s pretty much common knowledge that, to some extent, Oppo’s smartphones are the “blueprint” for what comes from OnePlus. Year by year, things have been more and more their own, but sometimes, it’s a deal that works out. Now, the Oppo R17 is official, and I wouldn’t mind one bit if the OnePlus 6T looked just like it.
Over the past couple of years, smartphone design has been evolving to give users as much screen as possible without making the phone any bigger. It’s given us some truly wonderful devices, but many OEMs have resorted to the display notch to do so. Some, though, have experimented with unique designs to give us something better. Oppo is no stranger to unique smartphone design and today, the company is officially unveiling the Find X, its latest flagship with some cool tricks up its sleeve…
Smartphone sales in China may be down 5% year-on-year, but four of the five top-selling brands saw growth in Q3, reports Canalys. Oppo was the exception, seeing a slight decline in sales, that allowed Huawei to take the #1 slot …
New data from Strategy Analytics points to a surprise runner-up to Apple on the list of top selling smartphone makers during the first quarter of 2017. Thanks in part to Samsung’s Note 7 misfortune, Chinese company Oppo is ranked #3 globally with its R9s smartphone.
Trendforce data seen by us suggests that Samsung overtook Apple in Q1 smartphone sales even before the company’s new flagship Galaxy S8 lands in stores in Q2. Most of the gains made by the company were thanks to lower-end devices.
Samsung’s sales results for its high-end smartphones fell short of expectations in the first quarter as consumers’ confidence in the brand had yet to fully recover from the recall of Galaxy Note 7. Nevertheless, Samsung continued to do very well in the mid-range and low-end segments of the market. The economically priced, high-performing Galaxy J series sustained Samsung’s shipments and contributed significantly to the expansion of the brand’s overall smartphone production volume. Samsung was the only brand that saw positive growth in production volume during the off season of the first quarter.
There was less cheer when it came to high-end devices, however …
Chinese phone sales continue to be dominated by local brands as shown by the latest analyst data via Bloombeerg. With the exception of Apple’s iPhone, all of the top manufacturers in the region are Chinese companies that make Android phones. Across 2016, Oppo, Huawei and Vivo grew in the double digits to take the top three slots and represent half of all smartphone sales.
Xiaomi slipped to fourth place with 35% fall in sales and Samsung Galaxy phones failed to hit the top five at all, being grouped into the ‘Others’ miscellaneous category by IDC.
Oppo is one of the fastest growing smartphone manufacturers in the world. Having sold around 50 million smartphones last year, it’s closing in on LG, which is pretty impressive given the size of the company. The F1 Plus looks to continue that success in 2016 and having spent some time with the phone, Oppo’s got a great shot of doing just that, even if the device needs a little work.
The latest figures from Strategy Analytics show that Chinese brands Huawei and Oppo were the main winners in a year that saw the first ever fall in global smartphone sales, with established brands Samsung and Apple both seeing falls in their share.
Linda Sui, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Global smartphone shipments fell 3 percent annually from 345.0 million units in Q1 2015 to 334.6 million in Q1 2016. It is the first time ever since the modern smartphone market began in 1996 that global shipments have shrunk on an annualized basis. Smartphone growth is slowing due to increasing penetration maturity in major markets like China and consumer caution about the future of the world economy.”
While Samsung held its number one place in the rankings, it saw its sales drop by 3.7M year-on-year, while Apple’s iPhone sales dropped by 10M in the same time-frame. It was Chinese brands which picked up these lost sales …
If 2015 taught us anything, it’s that there’s a huge opportunity in the smartphone market for high-spec, affordable mid-range phones. Companies like OnePlus, Xiaomi and Huawei have all churned out some fantastic devices at competitive prices. Remarkably, one of the fastest growing Chinese companies is Oppo, and they sent us their newest smartphone, the F1 Plus.
The prosperous urban regions of China – where almost all the emerging middle class are to be found – is a key market for premium smartphone models, and the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel suggest that local Android brands are taking market share from Apple.
The latest smartphone OS data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech for the three months ending February 2016 shows that Android increased its sales share in urban China to 76.4% from 73% in the same period a year ago. In the US and EU5, Android continued to make year-on-year gains.
Apple saw the iPhone’s market share drop 3.2% in the same period.
Just a couple of weeks after announcing the latest R-series phones, Oppo has followed up with the new F1 Plus for African, Southeast Asian and European markets. Like most competitive Android smartphones these days, it has a flat iPhone-like all-metal rear case with rounded edges, and is practically identical to the R9 and R9 Plus revealed last month.
Oppo has taken the wraps off its latest premium mid-rangers, the R9 and R9 Plus, just days after they showed up on TENAA. Both are Android 5.1-based phones running Oppo’s Color OS 3.0, a new, lighter and brighter version of the Chinese manufacturer’s custom user interface. Both also have front and back cameras packed with pixels, relatively capacious batteries, edge-to-edge displays, fingerprint sensors and fast charging.
Having recently had its next smartphones show up on China’s TENAA site, Oppo has decided to announce when the R9 and R9 Plus will be unveiled. In a post on Weibo, the Chinese manufacturer has revealed a March 17 launch date for the next two premium mid-rangers.
Over the past couple of years, TENAA has been a great source for finding out about devices before they’re launched. Like the FCC in the US, handsets have to pass through TENAA to be certified for release in China. If some recent additions are anything to go by, Oppo is set to release a couple of new R-series Android smartphones. The Oppo R9 and R9 Plus popped up on TENAA’s site recently and feature a modern, premium all-metal design and some decent specs.
The race to allow us to rapidly charge our smartphones got a big boost last year when Qualcomm announced that the Quick Charge 3.0 tech in its Snapdragon 820 chip would allow a typical smartphone to be charged to 80% capacity in 30 minutes. Oppo is now claiming that you’ll be able to recharge some of its devices in just 15 minutes, reports Engadget.
Oppo says that’s about how much time it’ll take to charge a dead 2,500mAh battery to 100%, and that the technology will work over traditional MicroUSB and USB Type-C cables …
With Xiaomi having just announced its intention to announce the Mi 5 during MWC in Barcelona this year, Oppo wasn’t far behind with its own related — albeit incredibly vague — announcement. Oppo sent out a short press release claiming that it will show off a ‘groundbreaking power solution’ as well as an ‘unprecedented smartphone camera innovation’. If you’re looking for answers as to what exactly that means, I have none. It’s a string of buzz words that don’t say anything of substance.
The power solution could be anything from a new high density, high capacity, fast-charging smartphone battery, to a new battery pack. With Oppo having released motorized rotating cameras in the past, there are no shortage of possibilities as to what ‘camera innovation’ means.
Stepping aside from the excessive use of superlatives, Oppo had a fantastic year in 2015. Like Huawei, it saw a huge jump in the number of shipped devices worldwide. It sold 50 million smartphones, which was up 67 percent on the previous year, taking it up to 8th in the list of 2015’s biggest smartphone manufacturers.
“With our commitment to equip everyday consumers with the best technology, OPPO invests great efforts in technological innovation. We have a legacy of bringing new ideas to the industry that we are proud to uphold, such as introducing the world’s first motorized rotating camera, the fast and safe VOOC Flash Charge technology, the first front-facing Screen Flash, and the first selfie beautify function for smartphones,” said Mr. Sky Li, OPPO Vice President and Managing Director of International Mobile Business. “We are excited to present OPPO’s latest breakthroughs at the world-class MWC and look forward to creating even more amazing user experiences.”
In 2015, OPPO sold 50 million units, representing year-on-year growth of 67 percent. The company has broken into the top ten smartphone brands worldwide, ranking eighth in units shipped, according to a recent report by TrendForce.
Having run one of the most unusual pre-release marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen, the Oppo F1 is finally here with the strap-line “#HelloMetal”. Oppo‘s latest phone is an almost all-metal, small smartphone equipped with specifications you’d expect from a mid-tier Chinese-made smartphone.
The Oppo F1 features a 5-inch IPS display boasting a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, with a respectable pixel density of 294ppi. Inside, there’s a new Snapdragon 616 octa-core processor paired with 3GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage, which can be expanded by MicroSD card up to 128GB. Rear and front cameras are 13MP f/2.2 and 8MP f/2.0 respectively, while the non-removable battery holds 2,500mAh power, which should easily be enough to get through a day’s use in a phone this small.
At its thickest point, the phone measures just 7.25mm thin and comes in gold/white only. It runs Oppo’s ColorOS 2.1 on top of Android 5.1 Lollipop and is available to pre-order now from OppoStyle for $249.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKgmxsUGx4M]
We first caught wind of the Oppo F1 when it passed through TENAA in China a few weeks ago. All the specs seem to match, suggesting the F1 will launch with model number, A35.
As $250 smartphones go, the Oppo F1 certainly seems competitive enough. Although it doesn’t have the full HD screen found in the OnePlus X, or latest budget BLU smartphone, it still has enough about it to be worth the outlay, presuming the software and UI experience is as enjoyable and reliable. Its design gives it a luxury/high-end look, which should go a long way to convincing buyers to part with their cash. Let’s just hope none of them watched the awful #GoodbyePlastic videos, that would put me off a company for life.
With Samsung having launched its Galaxy A-series phones for 2016 and BLU launching the first sub-$100 1080p smartphone at the end of this year, it looks as though the trend of releasing premium-looking smartphones at affordable prices is set to continue in to 2016. One company known for releasing great, affordable smartphones is Oppo, and the Chinese smartphone manufacturer is about to launch its next small, powerful and budget-friendly smartphone…
Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Oppo, has revealed its plans for the holiday season. For seven days between December 7th and December 13th, customers will be able to visit Oppo’s virtual advent calendar and claim a new badge every single day. The more different badges you have by the end of the seven days, the more discount you get on an Oppo R7 series purchase from the Oppo Style online store.
Users who play every day and end up with 7 different badges will have a chance to win one of two Oppo R7s handsets. The first two players to collect 7 will be the winners, so you’ll have to be as early as possible to be in with a shot. If you end up with 5 different badges, Oppo will award you an €80 voucher to use on OppoStyle.com. Players with 3 badges will get a €40 voucher and players with just one badge get €20. Those who share the game on social media using the #OPPOXmas hashtag will be entered to win a selfie stick or VOOC battery charger.
Rules and links the game will go live on December 7th with details on which regions are eligible for prizes.
Chinese smartphone manufacturers are known for making great devices at affordable prices. While it may not be as popular as the likes of Xiaomi and Huawei, Oppo is making strides in the smartphone market. Most of its phones are well-received by reviewers, even if the general consumer market is yet to become fully aware of the brand. Its latest phone, the specced-up version of the R7 is almost ready for launch, and is already available to pre-order in some parts of the world…
It’s not exactly just AOSP, but Oppo has today introduced Project Spectrum, a flavor of Android for its line of phones that combines what the company says is the best of stock Android and its own in-house built features. At first glance, you might think you’re using a Nexus or Motorola handset, which is definitely a great thing, but Spectrum adds some add-ons from its ColorOS that add a little bit to the experience…
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This morning, Oppo has officially taken the wraps off its latest flagship phone. The R7s boasts a host of flagship specs but, being Oppo, will likely cost less than the price of the traditional flagship phones when it launches across the globe over the coming months…
The Oppo R7 Plus, a 6-inch version of the R7, has finally opened for U.S. and European pre-orders, the Chinese manufacturer promising to ship by the end of the month. The device was first announced back in May.
$499 gets you a Snapdragon 615 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage (with a microSD card slot to expand it), a 13MP main camera, 8MP front camera, fingerprint sensor, dual SIM card slots – and a 1080p display that’s virtually edge-to-edge. In Europe, the R7 Plus is priced at €449.
